1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a cover for a pick-up truck bed, more particularly to a cover having folding panels wherein a storage box is formed in the front of the truck bed when the panels are folded up toward the front of the bed.
2. Prior Art
There are many foldable truck bed covers that are used to cover truck beds. The present state of the art can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,946,217 to Steffens, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,087,093 to Repetti, U.S. Pat. No. 5,427,428 to Ericson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,313,636 to Deeds, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,418,954 to Buckley. Furthermore, there are many devices in the art for use as storage boxes. However, there exists a need for a foldable truck bed cover that can fold up and form a lockable storage box in the front of the truck bed. At least one device has attempted to combine the two into a single invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,749,226 to Heft discloses a device mounted in the rear of a truck that can form a storage box in the truck with the walls of the truck forming three sides of the box and the tailgate forming another side. The device in Heft is connected on one side to the floor of the pick-up truck bed and is not adaptable for the dual use as a truck bed cover. Furthermore, Heft does not disclose the use of panels that taper from front to rear to adapt to pick-up trucks having tapered beds.
There are additional advantages of the present invention not found in the prior art. This invention allows a user to rapidly and easily convert a completely covered watertight truck bed to a storage box formed in the front of the truck bed, allowing access to nearly 70% of the truck bed. This invention also allows access to the truck bed so that a trailer hitch can be placed in the bed in front of the rear axle to pull fifth-wheel trailers without removing the entire cover from the truck and while allowing full access to a watertight storage box.